


puzzles and a king

by fated_addiction



Category: Casino Royale (2006), James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-04
Updated: 2012-11-04
Packaged: 2017-11-17 17:10:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fated_addiction/pseuds/fated_addiction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are rules to this. Everyone dies. No one dies. You decide what to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	puzzles and a king

**Author's Note:**

> In anticipation of the incredible, one track mind I am about to have over Skyfall, I roll around in Casino Royale AU land. Where the sun shines. Slightly generic Skyfall references included. I blame the long train ride to Boston.

There are rules.

This isn't about them.

This is what you need to think.

 

 

-

 

 

The phone rings. An orange sits peeled next to a tea kettle on the counter. There is still a receipt.

"You answered."

"Second ring." Her voice is dry. She listens to the pause.

"Characteristically smart," comes the reply, "and I had hoped you would still retain somewhat of a reasonable sense of self, Ms. Lynd."

"And yet, you still called."

Here are the facts: Vesper Lynd, who is dead and no _longer_ Vesper Lynd, is standing in a nameless kitchen; there are peach-colored walls, a charm bracelet on a dish by the sink with two other rings, and a wine bottle full of fresh flowers; she holds mail in her hand and four envelopes with printed addresses - she is on the seventh floor with traffic.

"Am I needed?" not-Vesper asks.

There is a sharp laugh. "Is anyone ever?" and the weight makes not-Vesper swallow the tightness in her throat. This is still a bad habit.

There is a click. Then there is a dial tone.

Outside, the traffic of New York is waking up.

 

 

-

 

 

The point is she could always tell you what happened.

She died. She died again. And then once more - life sustains all things in threes, one life to the next and then the next. They gave her facts. _This is for the best._ They mean that too. To mean that means a job well done. There is no more than that.

But she moved on. She is supposed to move on. She made a case for London. There was Paris for a number of years, Hong Kong because she reads money and dead or alive, money continues to move with considerable weight. 

She likes all buildings in New York. She likes the feeling of hiding in plain sight. She is the same in that sense; too tall for her own skin, her eyes nervous and cool, and every regret locked away in several rooms at the Royale.

Vesper will tell you to guess why she picked V.

She knows that they want her alive.

 

 

-

 

 

V bought an espresso bar in SoHo.

V hates SoHo. She hates the money. She hates the impulsivity. She hides in jeans and silk blouses all the same.

V is a good boss though.

"You have a message," her girl at the counter says. She studies business development or something classic at NYU. V takes the slip of paper from the girl's hand. "But I guess they came in," she continues and jerks her thumb over her shoulder, to the back tables. "You see the explosion downtown?"

"I saw the traffic," V answers.

"Same thing," her girl shrugs.

"You still have a customer," V says, and her girl wanders back to a latte. She takes the message though. She folds the corners with her nail and walks to the tables. She is expecting everybody. It's early.

She sees the two men in dark suits. She does not see their guns. The message slides into her back pocket. She finds the table.

Her hands curl around the back of a chair.

"Hello."

M seems to remain ageless. The wrinkles around her mouth are still severe.

"I suppose it's been quite some time," she greets.

V smiles. "Naturally." Her eyes are sharp. "May I offer you anything?"

M waves a hand. Behind V, boots shuffle. The men are new. V wonders about the need for a quota.

"No," M says. "I prefer my coffee with whiskey. It's a wonderful balance of flavors, although my physician is convinced I hide my longing for cigarettes. Fortunately for me, they have long since stopped that particular brand. Do you smoke?"

V sits. Her knees graze the table. "I am still French," she remarks.

"Quite."

The two women stare at each other.

 

 

The two women stare at each other.

"You will die in that room," M says casually.

Vesper gets a call from the bank. She turns her phone down on her knee.

"I understand that," she says. Then her lips pucker. "Even so."

"Even so, your service to your country is both about your casual graces and superficial mistakes. It's different for you and I." M folds herself over her elbows. She does not shrink. "We're strategists," she says. "Your mind is meant to be peculiar. Perhaps you'll fall in love and use that. Perhaps you won't. Perhaps you'll get lucky and remain a invaluable end."

Vesper laughs. "How odd for you."

She could tell you that she liked M, or had room to (needed, wanted; really it was interchangeable at best), but she stands and picks up the train ticket. The knot at her throat is heavy.

"Do your best," she says and it's exactly as patronizing as Vesper imagines M to be. Later, she will imagine multiple clues, ends, and things she would have missed. The service is a house, after all.

They wear a lot of faces.

 

 

"He will come looking for you."

V lifts a hand and orders her coffee. A solo shot. Bitter as can be. M continues to wear a coat. The city is not as cold yet.

"Are you sure?"

M does not blink. "Are you worried?"

No, V might say. Or consider. It is very easy to consider. She feels M's gaze remain and wait.

"Should I be?" she asks.

M pushes her chair back. V's girl brings the espresso. She mentions the news and V remembers just how good the right biscotti is with the right drink. These memories, those new ones, are just as good as sleeping with the right man. And then meeting the right mother-in-law. She is sure they all know what too.

But she watches the window then, the glass suddenly, staring at the reflection of the bar and the street, a side by side merge. The music skips. M stands with impatience.

"You know him better than me," V finishes.

M signals her men. V already has answered the questions about the explosion too. See the news. Read tomorrow's paper. Your smart phone will sing you an alert. But he won't come, she thinks. He's pragmatic. Perhaps they've forgotten. That is more than just dangerous.

She remembers that he is dangerous.

 

 

-

 

 

In Hong Kong, V cut her hair to her chin.

In Barcelona, she slept with a musician who called her Frankie and wore nothing but berets and red and told her, "you cry in your sleep, Frankie" because that was what she needed to know.

In New York, her hair is red and she smokes cheap cigarettes and she leaves her wine on the counter for flower bottles.

V has a long day at the espresso bar.

But that's normal.

 

 

The cab takes the long way home.

V would rather walk. Her girl has class and says, "See you in the morning!" Her boys just tell her they'll be late.

She cannot remember why she takes a cab.

She still presses the bills into the sweaty palm of her driver, who smells like fish oil and wicker candles. The radio is on. Her hair curls at her throat. She still says thank you and means it.

 

(Another fact goes the way of waking her up, the wires in her arm and hospital, on the sea, with a nurse explaining her overdose. They called her sad and pretty. They would make her take long walks with company and she would stare hard at the sea. She would miss it more with no boats, You should know a few more things. Her belongings were as followed: no red dress, no shoes, no passport, no sympathy, and a scar around her neck. Are you surprised?)

 

The hallway outside the apartment is bright.

Her door is open. Her door is not broken. She flexes her fingers and keeps her keys in her pocket.

V stares straight at the shadow in the dark.

 

 

-

 

 

"I like Hong Kong."

There is a dead man staring up at her. The pool of blood sticks to her soles. They're good boots.

"Should I ask?"

Bond stares back at her. His eyes are cold. He breaks down the gun at a nearby kitchen counter.

"Do you want to know?" he says, and his mouth twists into a scoff. One by one, the gun shrinks and disappears.

"That's a stupid question, James," she says. Her voice catches. She sits on a stool and turns on the news for the television at the breakfast bar. "I imagine if you wanted to look for a lot of people, you would find them. Or you would impose the resources to find them. Or you drag them back from the dead, or the desert, or some impossibly ridiculous place because you wanted to find them, not because you needed to. You don't need to do a lot of things, James."

"But I do them," he says.

What follows is all the grand scale affairs you can imagine: he fucks beautiful women like he drinks, all with a particular taste and a peculiar memory; he kills men with bullets and hands and boredom; he evolves and follows her out of order to Hong Kong (again), Barcelona (twice), and in New York?

Bond buys V the espresso bar.

This is the abridged version.

 

 

"Business is well," he states.

She peels apart the wrapping to gauze in her bathroom. The light is small. She has a tub that he sits and uses. Her silk blouse is black and wet.

He smells like fire.

"Mother send her regards," she says.

He raises an eyebrow.

"She knows."

Her fingers are careful. The alcohol spreads clumsily against his skin. She sees grim. There is gravel.

He smells like fire. This is not new. He would come back to bed like that in the Royale, sweaty, twisted, and sinking into their hotel sheets. She suspects this is why he need the boat.

"Are you surprised?" he asks. She searches his face. His mouth is almost a smile. "Of course, you're not."

"I'm not," she agrees. She pauses. "You have a new one," she says.

"Two," he agrees as well. His amusement is clear.

"Everything in pairs for you," she murmurs.

She drags the gauze to his mouth. It kisses the fabric. He does not flinch.

"I favor a good habit."

She exhales and finds a clean pack. The gauze in her hand drops to the floor. V does not ask him for coffee.

"Are you all right?" she asks quietly. He grabs her palm. His nails break at her skin. "I imagine you've made quite the mess."

"I'm a bit mad, they say," he says into her palm. He kisses and his mouth is hot. His tongue flickers over her skin, counting the lines. "With too good of a shot and accessibility meant to get me killed."

"You're not sloppy."

His mouth ghosts into his laugh. "I've forgotten," he replies. "How you do that. And just how fast."

She lets him pull her between his knees.

 

 

V is languid when she sleeps with him.

Her fingers wrap around the base of his dick. She wets her mouth. Her tongue is sticky. She makes sure that she brings him just to the brink, all to dig her nails into his thigh and mark him hers.

The sheets of her bed are cool though. They remain blue in the morning, but that is forgotten and beyond any sort of rational importance. James has a separate memory.

But Bond is equally slow, equally crass, as he drags her into his lap, as she spreads her legs for him and lets him sink his dick inside of her. He does not grit his teeth. He does not call her _baby_ or tell her how tight, wet, and hot she is.

Instead, inside of her builds a fever, heavy enough to make her head spin, her teeth drag across his through, his fingers crescent into her back, his mouth at her shoulder. He fucks her first. The she fucks him next, all aware that it's halves and they dangerously venture into the part where he wants her to finish with him, fingers slick and dragging against her clit.

He does not call her Vesper.

She does not call him Bond.

They do not make breakfast in the morning so that she can hike his trousers to his ankles and he can open her robe to fuck her into the wall.

When he is gone though, V makes a call for real estate.

She will sit in her kitchen and finger the locks of her hair. She will consider going blonde. She will laugh softly at the idea. She will think that she likes to pretend that none of this never happened, that she never fell, that this will never be about love, and she is just restless with purpose.

She will still smell him though.

V remains far from the romantic. This is not important. You just to need to know that he can find her and that he always will. He will never seem to care as to why.

This is another fact.

 

 

-

 

 

In a few months, she will sell the espresso bar.

M issues an assignment.


End file.
